ABSTRACT
The death of his wife in November 1899 after a long illness was more than a grievous personal loss. Her activity as a political hostess-an intelligent and vigorous champion of her husband-had done a great deal to offset the complaints of Salisbury’s remoteness from ministers outside the cabinet and MPs. Hit hard on a personal level by her decline and disappearance from his life-his unmarried daughter Gwendolen replaced her, to some extent-he did not allow it to distract him from incessant toil. Rest had to be forced on a tiring man by sickness and convalescence; even then he was only momentarily out of touch. Naturally, the disasters in South Africa swelled the murmurs, heard from time to time since the 1880s, that the premiership and the Foreign Office ought not to be held by one man. It had been obvious from the press attacks on him before Fashoda that the real objection was to his policy; solicitude for his weakening health in 1899-1900 masked discontent with the “as it seems steady declension in power and grip of the Prime Minister”. This picture of Salisbury simply reflected Lord George Hamilton’s desire for a different response to events in China. There, as elsewhere, he and others found Salisbury wanting in his treatment of Germany: the concessions made to her over the years were “so clumsy in…methods and manner as to cause more offence than good feeling”. This echoed some German criticism, especially from the Emperor. More disturbing to a conventional and generally loyal colleague was Salisbury’s speech on the war in South Africa at the opening of the new session in February 1900: “the worst…I have ever seen attached to his name: cynical, satirical…wholly devoid of sound argument [as] an appreciation of the great crisis through which we are passing”. In fact, Salisbury had analysed the failure of the British in the campaign to date, at several levels and as if he were in opposition. His ministers had reason to feel aggrieved. They, or a number of them, wished for a greater say in making foreign policy, and “unity of purpose” in making war.3
